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Women Helping Women Help Themselves

Since 1997 Sister Kristin Wombacher has served
as the Director of SafeHouse, a supervised, structured program in San Francisco for homeless women who want to leave the life of prostitution.
A woman may remain for as long as two years at SafeHouse where a safe, healing and nurturing community is provided.

Glenda Hope, a Presbyterian minister, founded the not-for-profit agency that operates SafeHouse. In the early 1970s she founded San Francisco Network Ministries and worked in the Tenderloin District of the city. There she came to know many prostituted women, and a few women who had made it out of "the life." All of them told her that the number one need of women seeking to leave prostitution permanently is a safe, supportive place to live while they work on transforming their lives.

In the spring of 1997, San Francisco Network Ministries was awarded title to a city-owned property that was transformed into SafeHouse. It opened in January 1998 with the collaboration of the Sisters of the Presentation.

Probably the most powerful acknowledgement of the value of this collaborative ministry can only come from the words of one woman who benefited from the program:

"I was introduced to SafeHouse while I was in the county jail. A case manager convinced me that I might possibly fit in and find help there. Nothing before had worked. It had become evident that not the most rigorous drug programs, the State of California or the Department of Corrections, could not get my full attention or lead me to an understanding of myself and my disease.

I entered SafeHouse with the absolute inability to trust or be trusted. The walls that I had created to protect myself from further harm were the barriers that kept out the help that I so desperately needed in order to recover.

The thing that amazed me the most about SafeHouse was the beauty of the place. Carefully placed furnishings, comfortable beds with soft comforters and a feeling of home permeated the sunny rooms. It really seemed a little too good to be true.

And then there was the work.my work. Untangling years of deprivation, despair and dread. Sober! My decision to tackle this seemingly impossible feat was born out of the fear that I was slowly sinking into insanity. I had always been a fighter, but I felt myself beginning to slip away, fading into hopelessness and the fear that I would be condemned to live through it. By the time I reached SafeHouse I was willing to give this thing called recovery one last shot.

I was encouraged to take risks, to talk about how I felt when I had no clue as to how that was or where to find the words that could express 30 years of abject terror from drug addiction and prostitution. And I did not trust that I wouldn't be punished for having feelings that were very hostile and bitter. I think this a major fear of most addicts. When our true feelings are summoned, they are so frightening that we feel no one, not even we could survive them, let alone find understanding and compassion for them. We also have radar for detecting judgment from our saviors. When I see it slide across their faces filled with good intentions, it's over. No more discussion, nada! But I couldn't find it in Maritza and Kristin. So I turned my insides out and my outsides in and tried to discover why I couldn't seem to stay close to the shore, and how this delicate rhythm of life can stand hurricanes but not ridicule. I had an edge on the odds that are stacked against an addict of three decades in that I was --no doubt -- a horrible liar. I clung to the brutality of the truth with swollen fingers while I found or made up answers that I could live with.

Now I am 51 years old and have a job for the first time. I was homeless all my life living in hotels, with tricks, on other people's couches and in abandoned cars at the end. Today I have a small apartment that I cherish. Life is good. Slow and steady with no drama. Safe and secure."